“Everyone nude inside your suit, Caroline?” Sofia said, feigning shock.
“Is that an invitation?” Pierre wanted to know.
“Why don’t you shut up,” Caroline shot back.
She had been dirty and sweaty when she got into it and had come out clean and perfumed. She couldn’t understand why they continued bathing when they had that spectacular dry cleaning system.
“Because of the price,” Vice President Andrew explained. “Each suit costs ten million dollars and the cutaneous integrity maintenance system is responsible for two million by itself. It’s a good idea to conserve it.” It had a liquid feeding system with self-cleaning conduits that could be filled using external bottles. The problem with prolonged outings was the bladder and, principally, the intestines. Even using intestinal cleaning followed by constipation inducing drugs, which they did use, they had to take the perineal drainage systems for outings longer than two days. They already knew that those devices would not last for months, but they worked better during shorter periods.
The six prepared for a one-week sortie. Steven and Larissa would stay in the ship. The Rover had a two passenger mode and a six passenger mode, with heavy cargo in rear side spaces strapped on. It was a six-wheeled articulated caterpillar in which, because of the gyroscopes, each pair of wheels was balanced independently. Arriving at the first ship, they went in and soon found the hydrogen bottles. They took the bottles to the Ganymedian caterpillar and sent it back to the mother ship on autopilot, where it unloaded the cylinders. Perfect.
Sofia, Andrew, and Lucas made the descent into the grotto, after lowering batteries, oxygen, water, food and tools, including a robust portable computer, to the ground inside. For the first time, Lucas carried the specific tools of his mission with him: weapons. They camouflaged part of the logistics deposit with a second generation Chameleon invisibility cover. It worked very well. They advised those on the surface of the deposit’s location since anyone who did not know where it was would not see it.
Before proceeding, Andrew reminded Lucas why he was armed: to facilitate his own escape to the surface. There was no possibility, in case of a confrontation, that they would survive intelligent aliens on their own terrain: it would be shots fired, decompression, and death. If a conflict arose, Andrew and Sofia were expendable. Lucas had to get to the surface to defend Pierre, Mariah and Caroline’s retreat to the mother ship which, piloted by Steven, would immediately be launched to relocate, even under winter conditions, to near the equator station. Lucas was also expendable.
Andrew went first, followed by Sofia ten meters behind him and Lucas twenty meters back.
They are two of the three geniuses in service, Lucas thought. It’s a decision of doubtful quality that they, two of the most brilliant in the group, be expendable. Only Pierre will be left if they die. But the decision had been made and he had not spoken during the discussion phase. Now, the rules were to carry out the decision. He would do so with no hesitation. They were expendable and would be expended. That is, if he were able to abandon Sofia, which seemed to him as probable as going one millimeter beyond infinity. If there was something that he had gotten from his father, it was an absolute intolerance of aggression against women and children. Andrew did not know that, of course, but Lucas would always die, no matter how irrational the solution was, if chance put him between a threat and a woman.
They reached the door. They took several readings and obtained samples. When Steven verified them in the laboratory, they loaded the first drone and launched it. It seemed like a waste to use one of the two drones for samples of a door and rocks from the grotto, but in case they did not return, they would help the team understand the nature of the threat. Was it human technology on Ganymede, which it looked like, or an unknown technology, alien, until proven otherwise? The door was still open, as Lucas had left it. It was amazing that Lucas had been able to make it yield since it was a watertight door, sealed, like those in submarines. It probably had a manufacturing defect or had previously been forced open from within.
* * *
When they entered and turned the projectors on, they could not believe their eyes: thousands of Nazi SS soldiers had been frozen in blocks of ultra-transparent blue ice, five meters wide, three high and fifty in length, in two columns of men per block, commanded by an officer and a sergeant. Their faces, their posture, their uniforms, and their weapons left the historical image recognition system with no doubts. They were World War II era German soldiers. On Jupiter.
In the front, they found a group that confirmed their suspicions. Three hundred Spanish soldiers from the Blue Division. The Blue Division had fought for the Germans very stoically on the Russian front. The recognition system guaranteed: men with equipment used during the siege of Leningrad. Andrew asked Sofia if they could possibly be alive or if they were preserved cadavers.
“They are not alive, which does not mean they’re dead. They have been stopped halfway through that crossing. Death is defined by its irreversibility. They are in suspended animation. They can evolve toward death or toward resuscitation,” Sofia explained.
“And thawing them out?” Andrew asked.
“It would, in principle, kill them. We have not mastered the technique of thawing/reheating,” Sofia said.
“No one invested this fortune to store thousands of cadavers. There has to be a way to bring them back,” Andrew pondered.
“I don’t know if it’s advisable for them and I doubt that it’s advisable for us,” Lucas said.
Both looked at him. Their discussion was, in fact, academic.
“Let’s take a look around. Somewhere, there must be information about their presence here and how to revert this process later,” Andrew proffered.
In the mesmerizing basilica’s gigantic central nave, there was nothing more than blocks of ice and their silent inhabitants who were waiting, without know for whom or why. Sofia thought it would be a good idea to collect ice samples for more detailed studies in the ship. The vault door, more than fourteen meters high and seven meters wide, at the end of the hangar, was sealed. There was no opening system beside it on the inside. Probably only on the outside, but how would they get outside? They took samples of the huge door, the atmosphere and the grotto’s rocky wall using the laser cutter. They took photos of the officers’ faces and dog tags. They sent everything using the second drone.
The grotto’s temperature had fallen discretely, and they hadn’t found any sign of any type of active heating system. The grotto’s walls themselves were warmer than the atmosphere and slowly those walls were cooling off after they had opened the door, losing their heat to the surface. Andrew called a crisis meeting via video conference. He described their findings in detail.
“The cold is coming from the surface and is destabilizing the cavern’s internal thermal state,” Sofia said, after Andrew’s exposition. “It’s not impossible for it to be coming from an external generator, but it is improbable since this has existed for a long time and the external nuclear generator arrived here shortly before we did.”
“It’s possible that the first two doors have been damaged by a previously existing positive pressure in the frozen army’s chamber, in relationship to atmospheric pressure,” Steven said.
“The question is whether we should advise Earth or not. We will soon be coming out of the solar alignment,” Andrew put on the table.
“Why would we not advise them?” Caroline reacted, surprised.
“Because that fellow, Hendriks, from what Sofia said, dedicated himself to freezing and unfreezing animals, rereading articles and other German documents. Those are German soldiers. He could choose to sacrifice us in order to obtain information about the process or just to keep this secret,” Pierre said.
“Could this technology save people on the Earth if the predicted collision occurs?” Caroline tossed out.
“They are a lot of male genes...” Mariah let escape.
“You’re right,” Pierre said. “T
hese thousands of people, in case we were sent frozen women, would accelerate populating Ganymede, if conditions existed to give them oxygen, water and food.”
Sending frozen women. The idea was appalling. But perhaps it made sense in the mind of someone like Hendriks.
“They would also help with the colonization of Venus in five hundred years if they could be thawed when they arrived there,” Andrew said.
“These building blocks fit well in spaceships,” Lucas said.
They would not advise Earth.
Chapter 18
Revelation
“But how did the Germans put these people to Jupiter in 1943?” Larissa finally asked.
“And if they had that technology, why did they lose the war?” Lucas contemplated.
“It is extremely coincidental for us to stumble on this. Who says the Germans sent them?” Sofia pondered.
“It could have been the Russians,” Pierre said. “They could’ve found the Germans frozen in Russia itself and sent them here to have an advantage over us in the future.”
“In that case, why didn’t they send frozen Russian soldiers?” Lucas questioned. “These, when they wake up, won’t easily side with the Russians.”
“Maybe the freezing-thawing process leaves them with amnesia,” Pierre imagined.
“Let’s suppose they found them after the Second World War, discovered how to unfreeze them over the years but never actually mastered the technique of freezing them,” Caroline said.
“Yes, the art is principally in freezing,” Sofia confirmed, “and trying to keep from forming water crystals that break cell membranes during that process, because, when they proceed to thaw them, the burst cells will die. There’s no known solution for that problem. In the few rare animals that can be frozen and unfrozen, there are niches of water in liquid state below zero degrees or they’re almost completely dehydrated prior to extreme hypothermia.”
“Even at the far reaches of the universe, you’re still well-spoken, Sofia,
Mariah laughed through the video conference, trying unsuccessfully to relieve a little of the tension in the air.
“Who can guarantee that the cargo ships landed in this zone because of a positioning mistake?” Pierre continued.
“What do you mean?” asked Vice President Andrew.
“Perhaps it was our vessel that made the landing error; the others are together next to the grotto and only ours was off course,” the Frenchman clarified.
“And where could the other mission of settlers be?” Larissa asked.
“I don’t see other settlers beyond ourselves,” Pierre said.
“I see neither settlers nor their ships,” Larissa confirmed.
“If no one’s here besides us and these frozen guys are here, what’s our mission, after all?”
“If it were the Russians who sent this army here, then maybe our mission is to destroy it,” Pierre said.
“We’re not volunteers, Pierre,” Mariah said. “Why would we come on that mission?”
“We’re not settlers of any sort either,” Lucas popped off, but the others ignored him.
“Yes, we did not come here voluntarily,” Andrew repeated. “But that our being chosen was influenced by genetics is consistent with Crane and Hendriks’ speeches. The puzzle comes together in this aspect. We’re not only here to knock off this German division; we came here to stay and have babies, like they said.”
“We have scars typical of egg collection, at least three of us do,” Larissa added, referring to the fact that they’d noticed Sofia hadn’t undergone surgical intervention.
“I was operated on, too. You just don’t realize it, but when I have some patience, I’ll explain it to you,” Sofia added.
“Sorry if I didn’t tell you anything, Sofia, but you don’t have scars in the same place we do,” Mariah said while Sofia looked far away.
“Calm down. It’s possible that we’re being influenced because we were kidnaped, but we have to retest the hypothesis that our mission here is different and not only to settle this planet, no matter how extravagant that seems,” Andrew said.
“To settle...” Lucas said disdainfully in a soft voice.
“Speak clearly, Lucas,” Vice President Andrew urged.
“There can’t be frozen Germans on Jupiter,” Lucas clarified.
“There can’t be frozen Germans anywhere, Lucas,” Sofia Suren emphasized, raising her voice.
“But there they are, my friend,” said Pierre, looking at the video images of the frozen military division. “And I suspect that shortly we’ll get news from the scholar with expertise in German medical experiments, giving us instructions that will clear everything up.”
“I’ve got that feeling too,” Mariah confessed. “The truth will come knocking loudly on the door, and it will come from Tyrell Hendriks’ fist.”
Pierre, Caroline and Mariah descended into the grotto, taking more tools, after leaving a retransmission antenna on the ground. They wanted to see the ice army with their own eyes. When they arrived, they realized it was larger than they’d imagined. Mariah caressed Sofia, not on her face since she couldn’t reach it, but on the helmet covering her face. She should have had the courage to share with her friend everyone else’s astonishment at Sofia not having been operated on. Sofia forced a sad smile but winked with a sister’s complicity. Mariah then faced Lucas and Andrew and said to them, “Look, the brave colonists of Jupiter’s moons.”
“Who said we’re colonists,” Lucas insisted, in a foul mood.
“Well, Lucas, and who said we’re on Jupiter?” spouted Sofia.
“What are you saying?” Andrew asked, surprised, looking at Sofia.
“Who can guarantee that we’re on Jupiter,” Sofia repeated in a softer voice, trying to understand her own question.
“Where would we be?” responded Larissa from the polar ship, interrupting the brief silence.
“It’s certainly not Earth. It’s too cold, there is no atmosphere, and there is a thing called Jupiter in the middle of the sky,” Steven Boyd agreed, irritated, also via radio.
“And who told you that over the last few months, you’ve seen the sky?” Lucas murmured, exceeding all limits.
There was a sepulchral silence. Was what they’d seen in that transparent vault if not the firmament? A dome with an artificial horizon? Could they have been inside a gargantuan scenario for months on end? It seemed impossible, but the hypothesis had to be irrefutably tested.
“Steven and Larissa, shoot a laser beam at Jupiter and take a reading of the ‘return’ echoes to see if we can end this insanity,” Andrew decided.
Steven and Larissa went outside the polar ship. They placed the laser source next to the ship and a receiver three hundred meters away. They returned to the capsule and began shooting in lengths of successive waves, sweeping the sky as the reader registered the results. They were able to distinguish tenuous return signals from the capsule’s background noise, but the differences and sizes weren’t right for the planet Jupiter. They seemed to be attenuated signals coming from a rocky planet in the sky, and the distance was exactly that of the distance between the Earth and Mars.
Everything was an open question. They were all overcome by an extremely muted sense of astonishment. The sensation of danger was greater than ever. No one believed they’d seen imposters of the President of the United States, Emilio Cardoso, and of Prof. Crane on the monitor and this guaranteed one thing for them: the planet Earth was at risk of extinction and they were part of the solution.
“Our ship is not a scenario. It’s a spaceship,” recapitulated Pierre. “There’s a very visible impact where the logistics ships landed.”
“Plus this vessel’s technology is light years beyond Space Shuttle II and it’s clearly American,” confirmed the pilot and geologist Steven Boyd.
“The laser’s return signal is weak and the vault itself can interfere with the reading. It’s possible we’re being influenced by our desire that this to be the Ea
rth, that we survive and that we’re able to meet our families again. We have to retest the theory that we’re on Ganymede, no matter how crazy it all seems,” Andrew said.
“I’m not influenced by dreams,” Lucas declared. “There is no future for me on Earth.”
They agreed to double the laser beam’s energy and repeat the shots. They would carry out two independent mathematical analyses to decide if what they were seeing was the echo from a rocky planet much more distant than Jupiter, being seen in a film shown on a gigantic electronic screen. Steven and Larissa repeated the shots with high energy focused on the signal source and clearly picked up the oscillations over background radiation. Andrew turned on the robust laptop. They divided themselves into two groups, one on the ship and the other in the grotto, to mathematically analyze the results. After four hours, both had arrived at the same conclusion: there was a signal over the variation in background noise, probably due to the presence of a rocky planet. Worse, there seemed to be two satellites over them. There were no signals indicating the presence of a moon. The rocky planet was the Earth and they were on Mars, but under the surveillance of satellites about which they knew nothing.
“We’re definitely not on Ganymede,” Steven Boyd confirmed a few minutes later from the ship. “I just received an analysis of the rocks you sent by drone. They are completely incompatible with a planet on the outer rim of the asteroid belt.”
“Where are we, geologist?” the vice president inquired.
Perpetual Winter: The Deep Inn Page 18